1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer user interfaces presented on a display screen and, more particularly, to a user friendly technique for the direct screen design of a menu bar, including pop down menus and cascaded menus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In many computer application programs, a menu bar is displayed at the top of the screen. This is an important user interface to the application, allowing the user to access commands or information by the use of a pointing cursor controlled by a mouse, trackball or other pointing device. By selecting a menu bar item, a pull down menu is displayed having a plurality of commands or options. Selecting a displayed command in the pull down menu invokes that command. Selecting a displayed option causes a cascade menu to be displayed adjacent the pull down menu. The cascade menu provides the user with various choices from which a selection may be made. While there may be further levels of cascaded menus, typically there is but one level for most applications.
In the design of the user interface for the application program, the programmer must define the menu bar along with the pull down menus and cascade menus. This can be accomplished through the menu bar object property window, but this can be a tedious task. Another approach is to define a menu bar through a property window, but this can be a tedious task since it is an indirect manipulation that is difficult to use.